


Born Again

by minute0fdecay



Category: Rooster Teeth/Achievement Hunter RPF
Genre: Alternate Universe - Grand Theft Auto Setting, Fake AH Crew, Feels, Ficlet, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, Implied/Referenced Character Death, M/M, Prompt Fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-06
Updated: 2015-05-06
Packaged: 2018-03-29 09:06:47
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,778
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3890551
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/minute0fdecay/pseuds/minute0fdecay
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Based on a text post I saw on tumblr along the lines of seeing your best friend who has been dead for years just sat opposite you at a nice meal. I saw it and had to write something with it, but I changed it up a bit! <br/>___<br/>“Why are you here?” Gavin demands again. “How are you here?”</p><p>“What do you mean how am I here? I got on my bike and drove here.”</p><p>“You’re dead, apparently!” Gavin yells, feeling the gaze of his fellow diners fall on him. He doesn’t care.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Born Again

In a greasy spoon just outside of Los Santos, Gavin can’t entirely remember what he’s ordered for breakfast, but that doesn’t matter too much now that Ryan Haywood, ex-crew member and deceased for the last five years, is sat opposite him, the same old grin plastered on his face, the same jacket on his shoulders. He sits opposite Gavin as if he hasn’t been gone for the last half a decade, and pulls his phone out to check it as if he hasn’t seen Gavin for that amount of time.

Gavin’s gobsmacked. He doesn’t quite know how to react. Movies dictate that he should start crying and hug his dead-but-not-really best friend and sort-of boyfriend but in reality he’s a mix of scared, pissed off, excited, but he’s mostly confused. He’d be less confused if Ryan _acted_ like he’d been gone, but the way he’s sat absentmindedly scrolling through some website on his phone is unsettling. A minute later he looks up at Gavin, who’s sure that there’s some dumbfounded, comically confused expression on his face. He’s at a loss for words, for the first time in his life.

“What’d you order?” Ryan asks.

“Why are you here?” Gavin asks, his voice louder than he’d anticipated. Halfway between a yell and a scream.

“Because I know you like coming here when you’ve been drinking.” Ryan says. A waitress comes over and fills their coffee cups – Ryan smiles his winning smile at her and thanks her. He takes a sip, and winces.

“Shit coffee, but the service is lovely.”

“Why are you here?” Gavin demands again. “How are you here?”

“What do you mean how am I here? I got on my bike and drove here.”

“You’re dead, apparently!” Gavin yells, feeling the gaze of his fellow diners fall on him. He doesn’t care.

Ryan laughs, as if Gavin had just told him some amusing anecdote. “Oh yeah. I am aren’t I? I had to lay low for a while after our last heist. I told myself it’d be easier if I just let you guys assume I was dead.”

Gavin starts to get annoyed with Ryan and his flippant answers and hasn’t had to put up with this level of lip since Ryan “died”. He’s been out of practice when it comes to dealing with Ryan’s dry wit and stubbornness, so it takes Gavin a few seconds to formulate a response.

“You didn’t think to tell anyone that you were okay, or…?” Gavin tails off, the sheer bizarreness of the situation becoming a little overwhelming.

“I got hurt in the firefight and woke up in hospital. When I woke up I really didn’t want to get involved with that kind of thing again, so I discharged myself and tipped a junior nurse to tell you all that I was dead. It was too close a brush with death, and that firefight was entirely because of me. I didn’t want to put you, or any of the guys, in that situation again.”

“That doesn’t answer my question,” Gavin says firmly, finding the tone of voice that he used to use when dealing with Ryan. “Why didn’t you tell any of us that you were okay?”

“Because you needed to get over it,” Ryan said, “and if you found out I was okay you’d try and rope me into more heisting, and I’d just get more people killed and I couldn’t risk putting you in harms way. You needed to move on from me.”

A lump forms in Gavin’s throat. The emotions are still numerous and clamouring for attention, but their intensity is starting to subside. Gavin’s missed Ryan, and it’s that poignant feeling that comes to the forefront. Gavin swallows the lump painfully. He doesn’t want to show Ryan any weakness.

“You could have told _me_ ,” Gavin mumbles.

Their conversation is interrupted as the waitress places a full cooked breakfast in front of Gavin. He’s rather lost his appetite, but clearly death has not had an effect on Ryan’s appetite, who takes two sausages unapologetically from Gavin’s plate and wolfs them down in a few bites. Gavin looks at Ryan in disbelief – one, because he’s offended that Ryan felt he couldn’t tell Gavin of his situation and two, because he’s stolen his damn sausages.

“I couldn’t tell you. You’d be the one who wanted me back the most. I wouldn’t be able to resist you.”

“And?”

“And then we’d get into worse situations,” Ryan replies, his expression softening, his slightly greasy hand reaching for Gavin’s. “Regardless of what could have happened, I was too scared of losing you to risk coming back.”

Gavin is reluctant to admit it, but he understands. Ryan was an explosive character – literally sometimes – and often was the reason that the crew had to take so many lives when out on a job. He smiles weakly as he squeezes Ryan’s hand, when another question comes to mind.

“Why are you here?”

Ryan’s face is gloomy. He looks down at the table and Gavin can tell there’s something on his mind.

“I needed to tell you something.”

Ryan’s always had a flair for the dramatic, so it shouldn’t have really surprised Gavin when Ryan doesn’t outright say what he’d apparently come all this way to say. He waits a minute or so for Ryan to start talking, but nothing is said.

“Well?” Gavin asks.

Ryan has just opened his mouth when the waitress comes over again to ask if everything was okay. Gavin is too on edge to answer her, but Ryan beams up at the woman and asks for another few sausages and a slice of buttered bread. Ryan has a certain charm with people. He can bend them to his will, which was one of his many skills that made him so valuable to the crew. He could sweet-talk a mob boss into giving away valuable information as well as convincing a diner waitress to give him a sausage sandwich for free.

“Remember that time we went out to Sandy Shores to test out that explosive ammo on those abandoned cars?” Ryan enquires, after taking another sip of the disgusting coffee.

Gavin does remember. He remembers well.

“Is this what you wanted to tell me?”

“No. But do you remember?”

“Of course I do,” Gavin says, his hand still in Ryan’s. “It’s when we first kissed.”

Ryan never blushed, but Gavin swears he sees a little colour in his face at that moment.

“Yeah,” Ryan says, smiling to himself. “That was good. I’m glad that day happened. You know Geoff set me up on that date?”

“Really?” Gavin replies. He couldn’t believe it. Geoff, for the leader of a very successful and dangerous gang, was not good for reading people or picking up on behaviours that revealed something about them.

“Yeah. He told me that he’d been noticing you hanging around me a little more, and that apparently I’d been a little too heavy on the eye contact recently – so he gave me the ammo, telling me that you loved explosions. I made up the rest. It was a nice little date, really.”

Gavin laughs. “I wouldn’t call it a date, in the conventional sense.”

“Is anything about our lives conventional?” Ryan replies, laughing himself. Gavin’s heart warms at the sound of Ryan’s laughter – it’s a sound he’s missed over the last five years.

“What was it you came here to tell me?” Gavin asks after a moment of silence.

“Sausage sandwich, on the house,” announces the waitress, beaming as she presents the plate in front of Ryan, who smiles up at her.

“Thank you, darlin’”, he says, a noticeable twang in his voice. A twang Gavin hasn’t heard before.

“That’s new,” Gavin mutters, leaning over the table once the waitress leaves. “That accent.”

“Well, yeah, I had to make a living somehow.” Ryan says, a hand on Gavin’s chest forcing him to relax back into the soft, comfortable chair. “I’m an IT guy by day. Have to put a little somethin’ somethin’ on my accent in case my real voice is on file somewhere.”

“Fair enough,” Gavin replies, letting go of Ryan’s hand to allow him to eat his breakfast. His appetite is just how Gavin remembers – the food is gone in a minute or two. Ryan wipes his mouth with a napkin and places the crumpled paper-thick tissue on the empty plate. The waitress takes it from the table a few moments later, after filling their coffee again.

“Ryan, what did you come to tell me?”

Ryan’s facial expression shifts a little – the sparkle in his eye dims, his natural faint smile contorting into a slight frown. He sighs, and reaches for Gavin’s hand again.

“You sure you want to hear this? It might upset you.”

Gavin once again feels confused, but mainly upset and takes Ryan’s hand with both of his.

“Tell me.”

Ryan looks at the floor and Gavin can see the shimmer of a tear forming in the corner of his eye.

“Ryan, please.”

Ryan looks up at him and sighs.

“Gavin… wake up.”

***

A hand on Gavin’s shoulder is the first thing he feels as he’s jolted wide awake. His limbs are trembling and the tattooed hand is trying to comfort him, calm him. Gavin’s covered in a cold sweat and he sits up in bed as he puts his hand over Geoff’s.

“I heard you having that dream. I don’t know if I helped but I had to do something. Are you okay?”

“M’fine,” Gavin says, patting Geoff’s hand as reassurance and wiping his brow with his other hand. His heart is beating a mile a minute, and as the realisation hits him, he starts to sink into that mood that haunts him from time to time.

“As least they’re less frequent now,” Geoff says quietly, the mattress shifting under his weight as he sits down. “It’s coming up to the anniversary too.”

Gavin nods and is thankful for Geoff. Lord only knows what a state he’d be in without him.

“You want me to stay with you for the rest of the night?”

Gavin nods again and moves over to give Geoff room to lie down. Geoff is like a comfort blanket for Gavin. He can count on Geoff when he has those dreams, and he can count on Geoff on those bad days. And in much the same way, Geoff can count on him on his bad days, and after his bad dreams, which as far as Gavin can tell, are similar.

“You will move on,” Geoff says quietly, as Gavin closes his eyes and tries to lull himself back to sleep. “We all will.”

**Author's Note:**

> the original post that prompted me to write this is on my blog thebadkingryan.tumblr.com (subtle hint hint).  
> thank you for reading and again, i always love to hear your feedback! i hope this made you feel things. <3


End file.
